Bariatric surgery is an operation performed in  patients with severe obesity. It is a procedure with the intention to save lives because the person itself is not able anymore to lose weight himself. Severe obesity can become life threatening when the person is severely obese and not able to move again and when breathing problems arise. Bariatric surgery is a very effective treatment against obesity but because of the serious bariatric surgery complications it is only done to patients where their obesity has become a threat to a normal life.

A bariatric surgery is the same operation as a stomach stapling surgery. There are many complications seen which we can divide in general and specific complications. General side effects are seen in any large surgery and are infection, bleeding external and internal, collateral damage and effects from the anesthesia. A common specific complication is something know as gastric banding syndrome.

In the surgery of the stomach, a large area of the stomach surface is removed with the intention that you will feel less hungry and thus eat less. But when you remove a substantial part of an organ it will need time to adapt to its new situation. The best would be if you would stop eating for a few days in order to heal the stomach but that is off course not possible. Gastric banding syndrome occurs in almost 20% of all patients and are the direct result to the inability of the stomach to digest food. The food will pass on to the intestines to rapidly and the intestines are not able to process the food properly. Common symptoms are nausea, diarrhea, bloating, lightheadedness, sweating and vomiting. There is no way to prevent gastric dumping syndrome but there are ways to minimize the effects. You should eat small portions of food with proper intervals. In this way the stomach has more time to process the food properly and digest it before it is passed on to the intestines.